Victor O'Reilly - Rules of The Hunt

"So he has a wife?" she said.

Kilmara shook his head. "That didn't work out," he said. "Hugo looks after Boots."

"And now we come to the matter of why this gentle knight living in isolation off the west coast of Ireland should be struck down by assassin's bullets," said Kathleen. "This was no training accident."

"It was no accident," agreed Kilmara. "And I suspect it is no deep mystery, either. The counterterrorist world is characterized by action and reaction. If you get involved, you are always at risk. I think this is a simple revenge shooting for what happened three years ago. These people thrive on vengeance."

Kathleen shuddered. "Warped minds. It's sick. But it's been three years. Why wait so long?"

Kilmara shrugged. "That we don't know as yet. But delayed revenge is more common than not. The target starts off taking extensive precautions and being alert to every nuance. And then time passes and he starts thinking the threat is less likely and he lets his guard down a bit. And so it goes. And there is also the saying…"

"‘Revenge is a dish best eaten cold,’" completed Kathleen.

"Just so," said Kilmara.

Kathleen studied Kilmara. Here was a man who had seen and tasted much of what life had to offer, she thought, and had come to terms with it. Here was a man whose daily currency was lethal force and who hunted other men. And who was a target himself. What a terrible existence.

"How do you live with all this," she asked, "the fear and the violence and the knowledge that any day some stranger might strike you down?" She regretted her words as soon as they were uttered. It was a remarkably tactless question and a clear manifestation of her fatigue.

Kilmara laughed. "I don't accept sweets from strangers," he said, "and I play the percentages. And I'm very good at what I do."

"But so was Mr. Fitzduane, you have implied," said Kathleen.

"Kathleen," said Kilmara, "when you have got his attention, Hugo is the most dangerous man you are ever likely to encounter. But he can be a little slow to start. His values get in the way of some of the more direct requirements of this business. But when he is motivated, he makes me look like a wimp."

Kathleen found it hard to reconcile the horribly wounded man in ICU with any element of menace at all, but Kilmara spoke with quiet certainty. Then a disconcerting thought occurred to her.

"The armed guards you've placed here," she said. "Do you expect more trouble? Would these terrorists try again in such a public place?"

Kilmara took his time replying. He did not want to create a panic in the hospital. On the other hand, Kathleen did not look like the panicking kind and he owed her more than a little for what she was doing for Fitzduane.

"The kind of people we are dealing with will do anything anywhere," said Kilmara. "That is one of the rules of their game. There are no limits. Zero. Zip. Nada. None. That's what keeps me young," he added cheerfully, "trying to outguess the fuckers."

"So you think they will try again?" said Kathleen.

"Possibly," said Kilmara slowly.

"So we're all at risk," said Kathleen, "as long as your friend remains in this hospital."

Kilmara nodded. "There is an element of risk," he added, "but let's not go overboard on it. There will be heavy security."

"Jesus Christ!" said Kathleen, quite shaken. "Who are these people? Why can't you find them and stop them?"

Kilmara emptied his hip flask into his mug. "Terrorism is like cancer," he said. "We have our successes, but the enemy mutates and we're still looking for a cure. It is a long, open-ended war."

"I guess the sooner we get your friend recovered and out of here, the better," said Kathleen.

Kilmara lifted his mug in a mock salute. "Way to go, Kathleen," he said. "Now you're getting it."

Kathleen gave a thin smile.

January 18

Fitzduane opened his eyes.

What had awakened him? Who was out there? He must react. He had dropped his guard before and look at what had happened.

The imperative to move coursed through his body and was counteracted by his painkillers and sedation.

Still the warning screamed at him.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. He tired to rise to a sitting position, some body posture from which he could react more forcibly than when lying down helpless and defenseless.

The effort was terrible. His body did not want to respond.

He drove it into submission and slowly he could raise his head and bandaged torso, but he was too weak. He screwed up his eyes as the pain hit, and a low cry of agony and frustration escaped from his body.

He heard a voice, and it was the voice of a friend. There was no threat. He was safe. Boots was safe. Suddenly, he knew where he was.

And then he saw her and felt her hand soothe his forehead and heard her voice again. "Hugo," she said. "You're safe. Relax. Lie back. There is nothing to worry about. You must rest and get well."

The digital wall clock read 2:23.

Kathleen, a warm, dark-haired woman in her early thirties, was changing his drip. On Linda Foley's initiative, she had been seconded from Intensive Care. Burke's patients tended to do better than most. She had the touch.

She finished her task and checked his pulse. She had an upside-down watch pinned to her uniform and she was looking at it as she counted silently. He liked the touch of her fingers and the clean, warm smell of her body. There was the mark of a recently removed ring on the third finger of her left hand.

"Can I get you something, Hugo?" she said very softly.

Fitzduane smiled. It was strange. The pain was still there but somehow remote. He felt rested and at peace. He lifted his hand and took hers. There was nothing sexual in the gesture. It was the kind of thing you might not do in broad daylight but which is somehow appropriate when it is two in the morning and the rest of the world seems asleep.

"Tell me about it," he said sleepily. His fingers stroked the spot where the ring had been.

Kathleen laughed quietly. She was a very pretty woman, all the better for the signs of the passing of the years etched on her face. "It doesn't work that way," she said. "You're supposed to do the talking. It doesn't do for a nurse to give away her secrets to a patient."

"It takes away the mystique," said Fitzduane quietly, with a smile, quoting what a nurse in Dublin had once told him. "Patients want support and strength – solutions, not problems. It doesn’t do to get emotionally involved with a patient." He grinned. "One way or another, we move on."

He started to laugh out loud. Outside in the corridor, the Ranger on duty heard the sound and felt mildly jealous. It would be nice to recline in bed with a pretty nurse as company. Then he contemplated what he had seen and heard about Fitzduane's injuries and decided that he had the better part of the bargain, after all.

The nurse came out of the room some ten minutes later and there was a smile on her face. She looked more relaxed, happier somehow. Earlier on, when he had checked her on screen before letting her through the double security barrier, the Ranger could have sworn she had been crying.

A message sounded in his earpiece, and he responded by pressing the transmit button in the day's coded response. Then he concentrated on the routines that the General had laid down to keep Fitzduane safe from another attack. The Ranger hadn't needed any reminders that lightning can strike as often as it takes. He had been one of the force that had relieved the siege of Fitzduane's castle three years earlier. As far as he was concerned, if you were a player in the war against terrorism, you were in a state of permanent danger.

Simply put, either you killed them or – sooner or later – they would inflict lethal force on you.